Well amigos, this is it. This is where we drop our cheery mask of bonhomie and get ugly. This is the day when, no matter how bored you may have felt at times in the last month, you want to walk up to people, grab them by the shoulders and tell them how to vote. Go ahead Australia, make my day.

Sometime tonight half of Australia will be dancing. And the other half will be cracking another tinnie in a very long line of them.

Send us your feelings over the weekend, your reactions. We'll be leaving the Election site up for a while and it would be good to preserve the joy and the tears.

And thanks for writing in to this site. Your input has really helped make it work.

Seinfeld

Date: Thu, 29 Feb 96 21:26:52
From: Tim Duggan duggo@mail.mpx.com.au

On Wednesday, I read that Tony Squires wrote a Seinfeld episode on the election. Can you please tell me where I can find this or can you please send me one. I looked at http://www.smh.com.au/elect96 but I could only find "Funny Side" which Tony Squires wrote but there was no mention of Seinfeld. PLEASE. I WANT TO READ IT.

Tim, use the archive button at the bottom of the screen and look at February 28. He wrote two eps actually. The other one was last week sometime - Ed

Western Australian Summary

Date: Thu, 29 Feb 96 19:31:36
From: Graeme Disley graeme@iinet.net.au

Your summary concerning Rocher & Filing appears to be correct - a lot older voters in Curtin will probably stay with Rocher, who they have voted for some 15 years

Can't see the needy behind the high walls

Date: Thu, 29 Feb 1996 13:48:11
From: John Honnet rupen@fast.co.za

Normally in Australia it's difficult for me to see any reason to support John Howard's vision, whatever it is. However, five minutes in this country (South Africa), with it's privatised health and welfare (read non-existent and crime-driven respectively) should be enough to persuade all but the terminally greedy to think again before voting Liberal. Privatised income redistribution is not a pretty sight. Please consider.

Metered calls

Date: Thu, 29 Feb 1996 20:44:52
From: Kaye Robins iq@iap.net.au

How will metered calls affect the cost of the Internet? How many millions of dollars per year for education (universities, schools, libraries), businesses (corporate, small), home users, hospitals and the police?

The Internet has had a big impact on the Australian people/business community. We are trying to locate Mr Paul Keating's email address, but decided to come to you instead. He would get a hellava lot of votes if this is publicised.

I believe that it would be a grave mistake to abolish compulsory voting in Australia. We have lived in the United States and have just begun a two year stay in Spain. It has been my experience that, if people do not feel an obligation to vote, then they won't. Historically, Australians have, on the whole, made informed and educated decisions when voting. I believe that compulsory voting has contributed to this positive state of affairs. If you know that you will have to vote, I believe you pay more attention to the issues and that, therefore, your choice on election day is better informed. I believe that it is also beneficial in that it supports the culture of participatory and representative government.

The right to vote carries with it an obligation to participate in the governing of your nation. In the U.S. very many people don't vote and yet complain about the government and are disillusioned with government and politics. They do not acknowledge their responsibility and obligation with regard to participating in their government. The U.S. has very low voter turn-out, Australia's is very high. I believe that is something
that we should be proud of.

Collective experience has shown that, very often, people will not behave in a manner that is beneficial to themselves and to society unless compelled to do so. Compulsory voting is such a "compulsion". Even given the present culture of voting in Australia, I believe that abolishing compulsory voting would put us in danger of falling prey to the attitudes
and voting culture of countries such as the U.S. This would be a great loss and such a situation would, most likely, be very hard to repair.

Congrats

Date: Thu, 29 Feb 1996 19:33:46
From: Mat Peterson it@kpmg.iol.ie

I am currently living in Dublin for 5 months and have found your Internet coverage of the election fantastic. I have visited the site every day for a while now and it's great to do it so easily so far from home! I often think that I am reading the SMH earlier than most people in Sydney. (You are Mat. We're live on the Net in the wee small hours before Sydney gets up to its paper - Ed) Keep the site going with up to date news long after the election finishes - I'm relying on it.

(PS: This is my final E-mail before the election and I assume this E-mail address will finish tomorrow. I would like to thank those great people at the SMH who provided us with a fair and un-biased coverage of the election and best wishes to all in the next few years with our new government).

As an expatriate voter from the ACT, I was bemused that your State-by-State coverage on your web page includes no mention of the ACT House and Senate seats. I can understand that these are probably not overwhelmingly relevant in relation to the election as a whole, but a nod to net-ready ACT voters might be nice. (Check out the two important ACT seats in Seats To Watch - Ed)

However, congratulations on the excellent coverage. Your web presence has allowed me to stay in touch with what is going on, and given me the opportunity to make an informed vote from afar.

Triumphant returns

Date: Thu, 29 Feb 96 23:47:21
From: Dino Bingham Dabba_Doo@msn.com

Almost three years ago to the day, I left Australia feeling disgusted that Keating had slimed his way into Kirribilli. And I remember saying to my friends and family at Hobart airport at the time, "I'm not coming back to this country until the rest of Australia wakes up and boots this amazing con man out of office". Well guess what, I may be watching from Detroit, Michigan, but you'll hear me scream for joy when I see his smarmy highness get the big A on Saturday. Besides, I'm getting home-sick.

Alternative employment

Date: 29 Feb 96 19:38:04
From: Ashley Serr 100517.1155@compuserve.com

Do the producers of the Who's Tommy about to open in the West End in London next week know something we don't? A perusal of adverts around town reveal the eponymous "deaf dumb and blind kid" is to be played by one Paul Keating. Suggestions for alternative employment for the rest of the outgoing Labor cabinet to my E-Mail address.

A caller on this week's A.B.C. program, Australia Talks Back, reported that the Leader of the National Party Tim Fischer had said, in Longreach or nearby, that his party would legislate to extinguish native title rights to land under pastoral lease.

I understand that the Stockman's Hall of Fame at Longreach acknowledges the vitally important role played by Aboriginal stockmen and women in building up the cattle industry.

They usually did this, under trying conditions, to remain close to their birthright country. Often, as members of the same families as the pastoralist, they were disowned when the will was drawn up.

Saturday's election provides the Australian people with an opportunity express their will to cure this disowning sickness of the Australian soul.